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Is Typing a Necessary Skill?
cloudwilliam asks: "The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article on how many schools have stopped teaching touch-typing as a necessary office skill and are now often saying that basic computer skills are more important. I'd agree with the latter, but what about typing? I learned to type on an IBM Selectric II (and still own one, as a matter of fact) in the mid-1980s, and the last time I was tested, touch-typed at around 60 wpm. Is this an obsolete skill? With handwriting and voice recognition technologies, is using a QWERTY keyboard with nine out of ten fingers something worth knowing anymore?"
Better to understand how the computer works, and learn to type as you use it. I don't think that voice and other technologies are going replace the KeyBwa anytime soon though.
Last time I was tested, I was at around 105 wpm with 99% accuracy. That's just a byproduct of using computers day in and day out for years though, and not a result of any typing class. I gradually developed my own touch typing system, I guess.
I dont thiunk typiong is a necasary skil ath all!
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Too many people I know don't know how to type correctly and use the hunt-and-peck method. They're amazed when I'm able to type up a 100-word paragraph in a few minutes, when it takes them up to half an hour. (I'd also classify them as AOLers, i.e. people that say "wut r u doing 2nite?" on IM services.)
absolutely necessary.
:)
how could you post to slashdot without knowing how to type?
incidentally, how many of you out there are traditional touch-typists?
i took a typing class waay back, but can't force myself to touch-type. but i still get around 80wpm using whichever finger happens to be around the key that i need to hit
I had typing in the 8th grade, and it was the single most practical class I ever had in school, period. You can type so much faster when you learn properly. There's a closer connection between your thoughts and getting them down in the computer. If anything, the prevalence of computers is making typing skills MORE crucial, not less. Before e-mail and word processors, bosses had clerical staff to type. Now the boss himself has to be able to type, too. So everybody needs basic keyboarding skills.
*resists teptation to correct typos*
I think taking tpyeing wuold have helpeed me now, since I'm rather poor at it today. No wonder the backspage key on my keyboars is worn out.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
No. I typed this with body parts that you don't want to know about.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Ask adults who use compuers a lot and can't touch type if they wish they could. I hear a lot of, "Yes, I wish I could type."
60 WPM isn't necessary. 25 would be better than hunt-and-peck.
it's boring and frustrating to watch someone type slowly, especially if you are helping them.
Give life
And I still don't type. I use like 3 fingers and hunt and peck the keyboard still. Everyone is shocked at how fast I can do it. I'm no 60wpm guy but I can hunt and peck as fast as I can speak and/or think with very good accuracy. I spend a little to much time looking at the keys but find that even without looking at them I'm accurate maybe 99% of the time. I just never saw the point in learning to type. My dad started me on computers years ago and since he's missing a couple fingers due to a table saw accident I just sorta followed his lead. It hasn't crippled me in any major way, although I am now an english major and hopeful writer so someday I might actually regret it. So maybe I'll learn, maybe I wont. If someone has a good reason for me to learn I'm all ears.
Is this an obsolete skill? With handwriting and voice recognition technologies, is using a QWERTY keyboard with nine out of ten fingers something worth knowing anymore?
Uhh... Last I checked, it's the year 2004 and we haven't stopped using keyboards. How could typing, in the furthest stretch of the imagination, be an "obsolete skill?" Let's ask this question again in a decade from now when people might actually stop using keyboards. Unless I'm horribly misinformed, voice recognition is nowhere near popular and just about 99% of the population is still using the QWERTY layout.
I call shenanigans. I don't see how using two fingers on a standard keyboard could ever be faster and more accurate than using ten. Your 80wpm...is there any kind of accuracy metric to provide along with that?
There is no gravity...the earth just sucks.
Darn.. typed too slow.
I took a one semester typing class in 6th grade.... I think the old BBSes at 2400 baud helped my typing the most.
Good typing means wrists raised in order to get the most strength and endurance, needed with the old manual typewriters. This also means better blood flow, which prevents RSI, at least to some degree.
It also means less time waiting for your hands to catch up with your mind, and so gets out of the way of the creative process.
All the technology in the world won't hide your lack of vision, talent, or understanding.
Learning to type properly is a very useful skill. Using a keyboard is a very efficient way to write out your thoughts.
The subtle benefit of knowing how to type properly is that you can actually type in complete sentences, and not come accross as being retarded in an e-mail or instant message conversation. You will still make typos and spelling mistakes (as I am sure I have in this post), but the post is in recognizable english.
when u dont use sentences nd use lots of abbreviations but not punctuation it tends to b noticd
END COMMUNICATION
I have nothing to say to this, but it's a keyboard related topic and I must thus write something about Dvorak keyboards, in which I type and which are so much superior to Qwerty.
Can someone tie Dvorak into the subject a bit better?
I was speaking to a colleague who was running interviews for a post in his organization when he told me that part of the interview he made them do a typing test.
:)
His reasoning was anyone that has spent a decent amount of time in front of a computer will be a good typist - it was a good way to see who was just talking the talk without the know how.
Pretty clever I thought
I had avoided fluffy classes in high school such as driver's ed, basket weaving and, yes, typing.
Then, as I started university I discovered that typing away on a terminal would really be more efficient if I had some QWERTY skills.
So I specifically enrolled in a typing class just long enough to get up to about 35 wpm before stopping (and technically failing the course).
But I got what I wanted. I needed to learn how to do keyboarding so that computer programming and creating documents on the computer was tolerable. I've hardly ever touched the IBM Selectric since the class.
Fortunately, I've never had quite the frequent need arise to learn how to 10-key, but I've been impressed by the people who do know this skill.
At some point I might try to become proficient with the Handi-Key chorded input; it seems like a great way for one-handed input, especially for small devices, in meetings, riding in cars, etc.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Yes - it should be taught....with
The Typing of the Dead!
As stupid as it sounds - this game is SO cool. And it showed my how badly I really can't type.
Heck yeah, typing is essential. I would argue that it is especially essential to any programmer or network administrator. The faster and more proficient you are at typing the faster you can get your ideas into production or solve problems. Not only typing out words, but also keyboard shortcuts in programs you use everyday will make you a better programmer/network admin. The less you reach for a mouse the faster you go and the less breaks in thought a worker will have. Also, when working with other people it is a great help. For example, if I ask a coworker to help me debug some code, typing proficiency makes the process so much easier. If you can navigate as fast as you or your fellow coworker can think there is no hindrance to your work (navigating with a keyboard is much faster than with a mouse in most cases). Bad typing skills, just slows everything down. This is costly when your work environment demands results ASAP.
Nuttles
(although I do type incorrectly, I can hit over 80 WPM)
This comment made me realize that I had no idea how fast I could type (never took a course). So, after a quick search here are some free on-line typing tests:
TypingPal.com
TypingTest.com
Turns out that I'm in the 2nd decile with a respectable 58 wpm (mean is approx. 40, and anyone who claims >100 is either in the 99.8%-ile or is full of BS). A thorough analysis of typing speeds can be found here.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
There's a limited amount of time to teach students how to do anything in school and even students who want to go into technical careers need to learn the other things. I'd certainly rather hire a developer who is proficient at mathematics than one who can type using all his fingers, let alone the two superfluous nubs we call pinkies.
/.ers and people who make money from computers, shouldn't we do all we can to keep people away from them to keep our wages up?
Lets say students have 2 hours a week of mandatory computing classes, It would be better spent teaching them how to learn to use a computer on their own, or how to research things, how to figure stuff out, how to have fun and otherwise get the most out of a computer so they'll want to learn more, rather than forcing them to pound on keys.
If high speed typing is so damn important the school boards should switch to Dvorak and we all know it.
Besides most jobs really require very little computer use, even good jobs and seldom do they require touch typing. Only typists, dictators and secretaries would truly benefit from spending hours learning that over say learning how a computer works.
And as
If you're talking about clerical work, typing is absolutely still a necessary skill. Whoever said that employers no longer specify WPM or that 30 WPM is sufficient for most clerical jobs was simply wrong. Read the want ads. I got a typing test at each of the three temp agencies I've worked for and over the last 5 years been administered several typing tests applying for jobs.
It is not a substitute for computer skills. You need both in any modern office job with an emphasis on writing. I don't think typing should be required (I never took it in school, I taught myself to touch type, it ain't rocket science). But it should be offered.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
That's a problem. It brings accents into the typing realm. British people AOLspeak very differently from Americans. Australians tend to just type relatively well, which is odd, but they do have their own short forms.
The various slangs are based on whatever shorter way there is to spell the way the typist pronounces a word. Unlike the original online abbreviations such as LOL and ROFL, these new ones are not based on the typographic version of the word.
Accents online is something we don't need. The beauty of someone typing properly is that anyone can read that text and understand it, short of something like "lift" vs. "elevator". I couldn't walk into Manchester's poorer districts and converse reliably. I now find the same is true of typing with Manchester residents.
With Brit AOLSpeak, the first phrase you have to learn is "soz wot" which I think means "sorry, I don't follow." The second phrase is "i fink u spk 2 mingin posh u bastard" meaning "I am angry that you don't type the way I do." I'm not making that up, though I profess no great mastery of the form.
Even within the single local group, the AOL speak tends to vary based on what kind of half-assed typing is being used. People who use three fingers on each hand choose different short forms than those who use only the indexes.
Just as we need other web standards, we need a standard way of writing. It's not unprecedented... consider italic and cursive.
Picture little Scotty, 10 years old at school, whining, "But Mrs. Crabapple, when are we going to use a keyboard?"
"Quiet, Mr. Scott, and just do the assignment!"
Turns out she was right. If Scotty had skipped class that day, the earth might not have been saved.
Same goes for the day when Mrs. Crabapple taught the class how to use 300-year-old MacPaint as a chemical engineering program. You just never know when the little trivia you learn, may be useful.
Kirk probably couldn't have done that, because when he was in school, he hacked the computer to let him run a real chemical engineering program, instead of MacPaint.
"Stupid Mrs. Crabapple. I bet she never rotated the display of a Aluminum alloy structure in 3D, by using the airbrush tool. Well, I'll show her!"
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
how could you post to slashdot without knowing how to type?
;-)
Many people post to slashdot apparently without having the ability to read
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
words per minute? you insensitive americans. i believe the SI measumerunt is l/s (letters per second).
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
There's nothing that can humble you more quickly than playing trivia on an IRC channel. Knowledge is often only about 50% of what's required. Speedy and accurate typing is just as important.
Unfortunately capitalization is not required in these games, which is why you're probably seeing a bunch of people bragging about their 110 wpm typing skills with a complete inability to capitalize a sentence properly.
Shawnmchorse and all you other typing speed demons, you're fast becasue you're already plugged into the computing world; you have to type fast to keep up. The article is more about kids who are being shut out of computing because they don't have the KB skills to get in the door yet.
I touch-type in two different systems; my SO hunts and pecks at amazing speed. Both of us are the product of using computers for over 20 years (and, probably more importantly, MUDs and IM for over 10).
Should young kids start being introduced to basic keyboard skills in school? Absolutely! We don't need to mass-produce 60-WPM touch-typists, but we owe it to the kids to teach the skills they need to effectively use computers.
I agree. But if it really came down to it, touch typing does require learning in a disciplined environment such as in a school. What passes for "Computer Skills" do not. I think most people pick up more "Computer Skills" on their own then ever do in a class. And for the money spent on computer labs in our local schools, the contents of those labs seem horribly irrelevant. IMHO, real computer skills revolve around tool making, not tool using.
"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating. And in fourteen days, I had lost exactly two weeks. Joe E. Lewis
What's special about the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is its more efficient key placement. QWERTY was purely intended to reduce typewriter jams (though not necessarily make typing slower), with no regard given to letter frequency in the english language (Why is "e" not on the home row?) nor the difficulty of reaching different rows. Upon viewing the layout it should be quite apparent to the layperson how much simpler it is than QWERTY. The Dvorak layout not only allows for faster typing, but also a lower occurrence of repetitive stress injury.
I say it time and time again...
The only class that I ever learned anything from, and still use the skills from, is my high school typing class.
100% Insightful
I also forgot to say that the standard touch-typing posture can easily lead to carpal tunnel or repetitive stress disorder because of the angle of your hands on a standard keyboard. This is one reason so-called "ergonomic" keyboards exist. But the way I've taught myself to type, my hands are naturally angled even on a straight keyboard, so I can type for extremely long periods without any fatigue and I've been typing hours per day for 20 years now with no problems at all. Something I think is really important to think about given how much some of us have to type - you can always buy an ergonomic keyboard for yourself if you're a touch-typist but you may not have that luxury at work, or in internet cafes, or wherever else you use a PC. So I think in some ways it's actually better to learn alternate ways of typing; whatever's most comfortable for you.